Movie review: This Ghost’ has a few too many glitches

Friday

Mar 31, 2017 at 1:01 AM

Ed Symkus More Content Now

Before any critical talk of “Ghost in the Shell” gets underway, some background along with a fair warning to eager viewers is necessary. It’s based on a movie that was based on a manga (comic book), both of Japanese origin. The manga was published in 1989, the animated movie (anime) was released in 1995. This is a live-action version. OK, that covers the background. Now it’s time to calm down and probably disappoint a large portion of the mostly young male audience this film is aimed at. Contrary to advance publicity and a few carefully presented preview trailers, Scarlett Johansson does not appear naked in the film. She doesn’t even look naked. For maybe 15 minutes of screen time, she looks like she’s wearing a tight, flesh-colored body suit that’s supposed to make her look naked. This kind of thing was done much better — in blue — with Zoe Saldana in “Avatar.”

Now, with that all cleared up, it’s on to the movie. It’s set way in the future, in some unnamed Japanese megalopolis. Science and technology have already reached a point where humans can be being enhanced by synthetic parts. You know, “Six Million Dollar Man” stuff. But now it’s gone further, and due to the research going on at Hanka Robotics, a human brain can be put into a wholly synthetic body.

A woman named Major (Johansson) awakens in a lab, gasping for air, and hears the gentle voice of Dr. Ouelet (Juliette Binoche) asking if she remembers the terrorist attack, the one that killed her family and ruined her body. The one from which her mind, or you could call it her soul, or her ghost, was saved, and placed into a new, improved body (or shell). No, she doesn’t remember much of anything. This, according to company protocol, makes her an ideal candidate to be turned into a weapon and assigned to Section 9.

Section what? Sorry, no time for explanations. Suddenly it’s one year later, and Major is standing atop a skyscraper, surveilling the sights and sounds all around her in a nighttime city that looks like the L.A. of “Blade Runner” on steroids. Then she’s “naked” and flying through the air. Then we’re in the midst of a meeting at Hanka Robotics, which is attacked by terrorists with guns and methods of doing some cerebral hacking. But before that term can be defined, Major busts in and attacks the attackers.

You want action? You’ve got action. Major is a one-woman wrecking crew, a well-oiled machine of a fighter who is great with guns. But we’ve seen this before. It was done to a much slicker degree by Angelina Jolie in “Wanted,” and, if you don’t need a female running the show, it was done more violently and with a sense of humor by Keanu Reeves in both “John Wick” films.

The acting is pretty good in “Ghost in the Shell,” even if the story is sometimes hard to follow. But plaudits are in order for the film’s visual aspects. They’re often spectacular, whether we’re seeing the huge, light-filled city, or making our way through murky and gloomy interiors.

The story presents many questions: Why are Hanka scientists being murdered? What is Project 2571? Beyond a few obvious characters, who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? What do Major and her partner Batou (Pilou Asbæk) hope to gain by tracking down the mysterious Kuze (Michael Pitt)?

There are also some answers, but not to every question. At least cerebral hacking is explained, as is the dangerous practice of deep diving. The film’s third act goes even further than answering questions; it starts releasing secrets that most participants in the story didn’t even know existed. But does Major really want to go on a search for her past; is she sure it would be right to find out what she can’t remember? That third act is a good one. It turns an already strange movie much stranger, as the action picks up and scores are settled. But it’s hard not to shake off the idea that “Wanted” and both “John Wick” films are so much better.